February 1, 2018--What Hillary Should Have Said

"Dismayed?" How about "infuriated" or "outraged?"

Dismayed is how Hillary Clinton said she felt when she learned in 2008 that Burns Strider, her "faith-based advisor," had been sexually harassing one of the women who was a part of the staff attempting to help Clinton secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency. 

Clinton's campaign manager at the time recommended that Strider be fired. Clinton did not agree, but instead docked him a couple of week's pay and required that he get counseling, which he never did. In the meantime, the accuser was "reassigned." Her harasser wasn't. Strider continued to send Clinton daily scripture readings.

In the first of two Internet postings this week, Hillary tweeted about the story, 10 years after it leaked out, she wrote--

I was dismayed when it occurred, but was heartened the young woman came forward, was heard, and had her concerns taken seriously and addressed.

"Heartened?" Her "concerns taken seriously?" This translates into not getting fired for blowing the whistle but, as often happens to women who raise these kinds of issues, she, not he, got "transferred."

This extra-carefully constructed reaction caused a groundswell of criticism, not from Republicans but mainly from progressive women.

For example, New York Times columnist, Gail Collins wrote--

Here's where I'm coming down: Hillary Clinton was the first woman to run for president on a major party ticket, and when she did it, she won the popular vote. She's broken a trillion barriers. She's also done enormous good work to improve the lives of women in this country. 

But she's never been at her strongest when it comes to men on the prowl. While her faith advisor wasn't anywhere near the level of a Harvey Weinstein, she did hang out with Weinstein, too, cherishing him as a beloved donor. And some women have never gotten over the fact that she did not leave her husband when she discovered he was having an affair, in the White House, with a girl far too young and powerless to be a genuinely willing partner. 

Because sexual harassment is so much on our national mind right now, we'd like her to be a heroine on that issue, too. But if there is anything we've learned in all our years with Hillary Clinton, it's that you can be both great and deeply imperfect. Even if right now we really wish she'd fired the faith advisor.

Thus chastised, five full days later, this Tuesday evening, minutes before President Trump delivered his State of the Union address so as to bury it in the news cycle, in damage-control mode, Clinton, on her Facebook page, finally wrote--

The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women. I'm proud that it's the work I'm most associated with, and it remains what I'm most dedicated to. So I very much understand the question I'm being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior. 

The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn't. 

I didn't think firing him was the best solution to the problem. He needed to be punished, change his behavior, and understand why his actions were wrong. The young woman needed to be able to thrive and feel safe. I thought both could happen without him losing his job.

I've been given second chances and I have given them to others. I want to continue to believe in them. 

Better, but still not impressive. She continues shifting about in an attempt to smother the firestorm of criticism and, as always, to avoid having to apologize, all in order to clear the way for her to resume her self-appointed role as feminist-in-chief. 

What she wrote two days ago still won't serve to rescue her reputation because it continues to reveal her as uncomfortable with the truth, inauthentic, and out of sync with the culture of the current generation of women.

Her disingenuous claim that what her aide needed was "to be able to thrive and feel safe" exposes the hypocrisy  Does anyone believe that what Clinton did was out of care for her young staffer when we know that the best way to help her feel safe would have been to get rid of the creep whose desk was pressed right next to hers? No, what Hillary did was to make herself feel safe--unexposed--at her aide's expense.

Hillary didn't asked me, but if she had here's what I would have recommended she say--

This time I really blew it. Big time. Considering my history, yes, my history, I should have known just what to do. Certainly not run away from the situation or try to spin or cover it up. Which I regrettably did. 

I should have personally investigated the charges and if they turned out to be true, I should have fired the bastard. Not docked him two week's pay. I should have arranged to pack him up and move him out. 

Speaking about my history, here's what else I should in real time have said, which might have been helpful to young women who for the most part feel estranged from me and my generation of feminists. 

This estrangement is understandable--over time the culture and causes and how to carry them out change and with that new ideas and leadership is essential. 

Those who are older need to step aside--still offering insights from their lives--so that new ideas and methods can flourish. 

The lessons I have to pass along involve those I acquired from my own hard-won understanding about issues in my own marriage. Many women, Gail Collins included, have wondered through the years why I stayed with Bill after he so brutally betrayed me. 

I do not have a good answer for that. Women of my era, even liberated ones, stood with their feet straddling two worlds--one in which women were acquiescent and, yes, stood unquestionably by their men, and the other world where we were striving to liberate ourselves from those sexist expectations. 

That was me--half bought into the conventional expectations that called for women like me to be acquiescent, making excuses for our husbands' bad behavior. Accepting responsibility if our men strayed while  very tentatively seeking for ourselves a measure of independence and efficacy. 

This is not a mix that has much chance of working out. It requires too much change on both sides. In my case, Bill needed to give up his old alleycat ways and become loyal to me. And I mean in more ways than just in the sexual realm. 

I also needed to find effective ways to assert myself. Hollering and throwing things was not going to get the job done. I tried that and it didn't. 

As neither one of us was capable of doing that--we were both too mired, constricted by what was expected of "men" and "women" at that time when we, or at least I, should have recognized that and moved on. 

Yes, Gail Collins, I should have left him. I lost what remained of my authenticity by not doing so and . . . 

I think I've gone way past my allotment of 140 Twitter characters and so I will end this. I think you may get my point.

Burns Strider